RED LAKE, Ont. – The Red Lake Miners stormed out to a four-goal first period lead and never looked back as they cruised to a 7-1 decision over the Thief River Fall Norskies in a Superior International Junior Hockey League afternoon encounter Monday at Cochenour Arena.
Captain Shaye Sommerfeld started the Miners’ offensive outburst 2:37 in as he picked up his 16th of the season.
After William Walsh made it 2-0 eight and a half minutes in, Ryan Howe and Morgan Venne added later efforts to put the hosts up by four after 20 minutes.
Red Lake kept coming in the middle session as they tacked on a trio of tallies to go up by seven through two.
Ethan Stuckless began the scoring in the session at 5:58 with a shorthanded effort.
The Miners kept coming and added another at 15:25 with Skylar Tremblay making it 6-0.
They then saw Ryan Howe strike with his side down a skater for shorthanded tally No. 2 of the day for his squad before the frame came to a close.
In the third, Nick Harder of the Norskies would put an end to Red Lake’s Zach Willms shutout bid with under four minutes remaining to round out the scoring.
Sommerfeld, Howe and Stuckless each had three-point efforts on the day.
Willms did finish with 42 saves to record the win.
Caleb Sauer started for Thief River Falls and suffered the loss allowing four against in one period of work while Joshua Seeley faced 24 attempts in 40 minutes of relief while giving up three.
Photo credit: Patrick Boucha